A man in the Sacramento area won't take down the swastika displays outside of his house despite vocal opposition from neighbors and a national anti-hate group.
Large swastikas dotting Israeli and American flags were spotted draped over the front of the home at 3805 Moddison Avenue in Sacramento's River Park neighborhood, according to NBC affiliate KCRA.
A structure of what appears to be a man in Army green holding his hands up, along with a Palestinian flag, also dot the display. Christmas lights are strung over the display so that it's highly visible at night.
Seth Brysk, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco, told NBC Bay Area that displaying an Isaeli flag with a swastika likely implies that the homeowner is comparing staunch Israel supporters to Nazis. He called the display "repugnant."
"Such a gratuitous and offensive display of swastikas has no place in Sacramento or anywhere else," /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Brysk said, adding that while the consitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression there is no place for "bigoted and anti-Semitic expressions like these."
Residents of the River Park neighborhood told KCRA on Tuesday that they’ve asked the unidentified homeowner to take down the swastikas. But the homeowner refused and called the flags his art, the news station reported. The homeowner also refused to speak with KCRA about why he had swastikas in front of his house.
Separate public displays involving anti-Jewish imagery have been posted recently in the nearby city of Davis, though for seemingly different reasons.
Local
On Jan 30, a Jewish fraternity at UC Davis was vandalized with swastikas.
A week prior, at a separate Jewish organization on the UC Davis campus, a janitor found anti-Jewish graffiti in a toilet stall. The city of Davis police department is investigating both incidents as hate crimes.
